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Jennifer

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Posts posted by Jennifer

  1. What is Objectivist view on animal abuse and how those who have been found abusing animals (be it dogs, horses, whatever) should be handled? I can see an issue with animals having rights, but is there a another way for this to be legitimized? I can't see in my mind a free society where people are found to be nearly killing horses and a large variety of other animals in cruel and often utterly disgusting ways like I have seen on tv and then them being able to get away scott free.

  2. Hi everyone. So, I was in a discuasion with some Liberarian friends of mine about Atpas Shrugged when one of them chimed in statong that Ayn Rand actually created a voluntarist/agorist utopia in Galt's Gulch as it had no government. I disagreed with this person and then another person said they did not rwmember it having any government either. I do not currently have the book in my posession and it uas been some time since I last read it. Could someone verify or otherwise refute this claim for me please? I find it unlikely that Ayn Rand would make sucu a mistake but I would like to be able to prive it Apparently this guy named Stefan Molyneux, who I have seen a number of other things from him I disagree with (he is an anarchist libertarian) made a youtube video stating this and this claim has since exploded into online communities. As a side note, someone also made this xokment to me when I said it had a government:

  3. A person I know emailed me this article and I would like to discuss it as well as have an Objectivist analysis of the argument presented within.

    http://redroom.com/member/tim-wise/blog/explaining-white-privilege-to-the-deniers-and-the-haters

    This is something I am constantly hearing about these days, this concept of "white privelege", and whenever I hear it, even though I am not well versed in this point of view or its argument, it makes me EXTREMELY uncomfortable almost instantly within that conversation or that environment I am currently in (partially because I am white, I suspect) and because it seems to be an attempted guilt trip over something of which I am not in any way at fault for. Privelege, to me, is one of those words that seems to be heavily abused these days, especially by the Left.

  4. Was not sure which forum section to put this in.

    Could someone explain this to me. I was visiting a friends facebook page where they were commenting on how the Islamist party won 61% of the vote in Egypt:

    http://www.newser.co...egypt-vote.html

    Someone commented on their thread stating this:

    "So starts the oppression of women and religious minorities."

    A woman responded with this:

    "‎.....Islamist doesnt mean women will be oppressed and a dictator will pop back on. Its incredibly naive to equate the two. You should do more research before you make such conclusions. Islamist don't write off free market capitalism or liberal social policies (UAE). Take ennahda party of Tunasia, who just won a majority of seats in the election, is a Islamic political party who favors free markets. http://en.wikipedia....nnahda_Movement"

    So here is my question:

    How would Ayn Rand/Objectivists explain this? It seems to be a moderate Islamist party that:

    http://en.wikipedia....nnahda_Movement

    Based on what I have read of Objectivist literature on this topic, this is not supposed to be possible over the long term, but this seems to be the case to a certain degree.

    The party is generally described as socially centrist with mild support for economic liberalism. The party wishes to revise the strong secular, Arab nationalist, and socialist principles that predominate among the other parties, and instead allow Islam into public life and be more accommodating to other viewpoints such as closer relations with the West and greater economic freedom. The party currently rejects radical Islamism as a form of governance appropriate for Tunisia; in a debate with a secular opponent Al-Ghannushi stated, “Why are we put in the same place as a model that is far from our thought, like the Taliban or the Saudi model, while there are other successful Islamic models that are close to us, like the Turkish, the Malaysian and the Indonesian models; models that combine Islam and modernity?”[29]

    Ghannushi has denounced Sayyid Qutb, supported worker's rights and women's education, and stated Sharia law has "no place in Tunisia."

  5. Yeah..my facebook was blowing up like crazy with how our justice system is an utter failure, how a murderer got away, and so on. I even had a few on there that were suggesting that someone should "pop" (i.e.) shoot her while she is walking down the street...but those were random adds so I quickly defriended those nuts.

  6. Do you have all the necessary facts to determine that? Don't we appoint judges and/or select juries for the purpose of determining whether laws were broken or not?

    Yes I do. There is NO ACTUAL LAW. It was an arbitrary judge ruling extended arbitrarily. Why is the judge being appointed god-like authority in this instance when we are well aware of, and can point to numerous, numerous instances of where they have made grossly unethical or unlawful rulings?

    From an earlier post:

    A few years ago, a young woman was arrested at the Jefferson Memorial for silently dancing, alone. The other day, a judge upheld the officer's decision to arrest her. His argument was essentially: we are the government. We have the power. Obey or else. There is no rule against dancing at the Jefferson Memorial.

    To answer the earlier question, I am upset becaues it seems like Objectivists sometimes care about the constitution as much as the liberals do. Regardless of whatever else happened, they were required by law to state which law they were violating that justified the action that was about the be taken, and they refused to do this multiple times.

    I would also like to see a proper refutation of what Louie said, of which CapitalistSwine quoted in his last post. I think this is a key element of this and I won't be satisfied with the position of the others here until a good answer is given on that point. It graetly disturbs me how often Objectivists seem to want to justify the governments actions whenever crack downs happen, or with the New York Mosque (when clearly, according to our laws, nothing could be done at that time) because it fits their own little wishes, but then they condemn to the highest order almost everything else the government does, it's almost like some Objectivists have an inner power-trip that gets set off when these things happen. I just don't get it, and it is frustrating.

  7. My hope is that through Montessori, teaching children how to think critically and in essentials will help them realize the futility of this decidedly anarchist approach to change. G

    If employing strawmen and ignoring gigantic swathes of history that seem to strongly suggest you are anything but not completely wrong on this point is how you are going to attempt to teach children how to thing critically then you have already failed them miserably.

    but intentionally breaking the law and going to jail as a form of protest is valueless and wrong headed.

    They broke no law.

    The rule is probably that security can take what steps they feel that they need to ensure the safety of the grounds and the visitors and staff.

    Jefferson was one of the greatest activists for freedom. The ones who weren't respecting the memorial were the cops, causing a huge ruckus and disturbing the peace. There was no need to ensure "safety" or "security" until they decided to get involved. You can clearly see at the beginning of the video that no one touring the memorial is even giving these people a second thought. This is the same bullshit argument that resulted in things like the Patriot Act. So if a cop tells you to stop doing something that isn't illegal, and you don't, and then you "taunt" them, that's a crime? How is this not the definition of a police state styled-event? How is this not morally evil?

    I also find it interesting that the fact you learned martial arts, whatever was going on with your sister, and all of that other crap has any relevance at all. I don't care about your personal achievements and experiences, I was talking about condemning political actions that, historically, have had numerous successes with respect to these types of things, whilst you are not assisting in bringing about political change in any sense.

    But even that is unlikely since the officers were incredibly restrained. Leaving out firearms, clubs, and tazers, all of the martial applications were entirely non-ballistic, restraining techniques. The gentle chokes, take downs, all of it. They could not have been more gentle.

    I have an uncle that is part of SWAT, I have a cousin that is a police officer, and I have a family friend that is part of security for national park and memorial grounds in D.C., i.e. the area of jurisdiction that this memorial falls under. Interesting that every single one of these people seems to think that this was poorly handled, that these officers were out of line, and that they had no right to proceed in the way they did considering they broke the law by violating numerous Constitutional rights provided to all citizens, such as being told specifically what law you are being reprimanded for breaking.

    With friends of freedom like you, we sure as hell don't need any enemies.

  8. You want Brook to go on the Russian Al Jazeera? Why? :confused:

    1. I have never seen any actual good reason, and 90% of the time no reason at all is provided, to dislike Al Jazeera. Please provide one.

    2. Russia Today is fine. That is where I get most of my news these days. They are the most Libertarian style MSM-like (i.e. as in technology/money put into it) news organization I am aware of.

  9. I found an article on Restore the Republic, it has a different camera view from the one in the original post so you can get another look at how things went down. It shows a lot more o the whole picture, since it's from the perimeter of the building, rather than right up close where you cannot always see what is happening:

    http://rtr.org/videos/2/21418

    Is it also ridiculous to suggest that they are poor at picking important battles?

    Adam Kokesh has had his own radio show, ran for Congress, was a strong advocate against the Iraq war after having fought over there, and now has his own tv show on RT with tons of liberty-oriented guests, and Yaron Brook is fairly high up on the list of recommended guests that are suggested. What are you doing? I think he is allowed to pick his little battles that are important to him on a personal level every once in a while, considering he is doing more than anyone in this forum the other 90% of the time. So what if it is not an "important" battle, we have entire organizations like CATO, ARI, Mises, FEE, and on down a hundred times over focusing on all of the "important" battles. What does that have to do with anything? Sounds like you just want to belittle their efforts whilst you watch Spongebob in your pajamas on Saturday mornings and discuss how the government sucks online. This attitude annoys me.

  10. Even if the republican field were not a disgrace, they would be as far as the dems are concerned. So basically threats on their part not to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee are empty.

    I would agree in the case of the majority, however I know several very hardcore Democrats that have already told me they will be voting Republican this time, but that they had to really mull it over, and that they would have more likely decided to sooner if the Republicans field wasn't so awful. I think that was what he was getting at.

  11. It seems like a lot of people complaining about facebook in this thread have spent a total of 3 minutes using it, if that. Either that, or they have a very low-quality set of facebook friends, which is more of a personal problem than a problem with facebook. I am saying this because there are an awful lot of false/completely wrong conclusions and statements about it on here which seem to have been the victim of either exaggeration or (innocent) ignorance.

  12. Diana Hsieh

    "My basic verdict: very so-so. Very faint echo of the book, too often incoherent but mostly just boring."

    I have read a number of reviews by him. He has outright torched, slammed, and smeared movies he has disliked without holding back anything at all before, and done it with a lot of witty marks full of a wealth of language to make it a more professional-style critique. Trust me, if he wanted to actually smear this movie he would have done much much worse than this review, this is one of the nicer reviews I have seen by him about a movie with 2 stars or lower, out of the one's I read anyways. As far as the accuracy of his review regarding the film, I don't think it's a smear, but it maybe inaccurate. I have heard a lot of conclusions by people today that are Objectivists, I have heard everything from it was an "unforgivable corruption, and a complete abomination" to it was "fantastic and amazing". Andrew Bernstein said his early screening weeks ago was great, whilst Yaron said it was basically "acceptable enough". I think I will just have to see it myself, there is far too much variation in the reviews for me to take someone's word on it.

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